Sakura Flowers and Love
by Missa22
Summary: Zuko and Katara go in search of Ursa, and Aang and Toph begin to explore the world, and their budding romance at a leisurely pace. Aang also wants to search to see if some Airbenders may have escaped the genocide 100 years before.


**Hi there everyone!**

**This is a new story that I'm going to be working on. One where Aang is a girl and Toph is a boy, so I guess you could really say that this is an A/U FanFiction.**

**But this is not a story about Aang and Toph. This is a story about Zuko and Katara, and the search for Zulo's mother. Yes, it is going to include all of our favorite characters, and introduce some new ones, but this isn't going to be your run of the mill Zutara.**

**I hope that you will enjoy this, and please feel free to reveiw since reveiws make us better writers.**

**Thank you! **  
><strong>Grá agus an tsíocháin a deo! (Love and peace forever!)<strong>

**Missa**

* * *

><p>Katara watched the waves wash against the shore. Finally, the war was over.<p>

Zuko is Firelord, and peace would reign once more for the first time in over one hundred years.

What would she do now? Katara wouldn't return to the Southern Water Tribe, not with their cramped ice huts, and couldn't go to the Northern Tribe for the very same reason. Damn Bumi for his stunt with the Gemanite crystals.

She supposed she could travel the world with Aang and Toph, but they were just now exploring their budding romance since the war was over, and she didn't want to intrude upon their happiness.

Katara sighed and sat so the waves could lap against her feet in a comforting way. It was always nice to be able to feel the element that she was closest to her in some way. Maybe it would help her think about what to do next.

She was still in the Fire Nation, staying in the Fire Lord's summer palace on Ember Island. Zuko had looked surprised when she had asked to stay here, but had said she was free to use in and anything inside for however long she needed.

She genuinely appreciated him and his generosity.

Reigning in her wandering thoughts and getting back to the matter at hand, she wondered out loud, "What am I to do now?"

She knew her father expected her to return to the south, like Sokka and Suki had already done, they were planning a grand Water Tribe wedding at the moment. But that world, those ice huts, didn't feel like home anymore. How could she explain that to Hakoda? The man who even now talked nothing about anything but going "home"? He would never understand.

Hell, half the time she didn't understand her hesitation about it. With the water benders from the Northern Tribe the ice huts would be wide open homes and palaces now. But she couldn't see herself in that land of ice, snow, and bitter cold anymore.

Groaning at her dilemma, she pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and rested her chin on top. She stared out across the vast, blue ocean, and said to herself, "Where am I to go? I have no place that feels like home anymore. Not the North, not the South, where will I go?" With that, she rested her forehead against her knees and hugged them close to her body.

"Why can't you go home?" a voice behind her asked.

Katara leapt to her feet as reflexes made sharp from the war took over. Adrenaline coursed through her body bringing everything around her into crystal clear focus. She dropped into the Octopus Stance and bent the water that she had drawn from the ocean to whip her opponent's feet out from under him.

It was then that she saw her adversary was none other than the Fire Lord himself.

She had forgotten how silent he could move when he wanted to, even with the shifting sands of the beach under his feet.

"Oh! Zuko, I am so sorry!" Katara rushed to his side and helped him sit up as she drew the water from his soaked clothes and hair. She felt horrible for this. He was her friend and ally.

Zuko chuckled good naturedly and said while pushing his hair back out of his eyes, "I should have known better than to aproach a master water bender unannounced so soon after a war. It was my own fault, Katara." He smiled when he looked in her eyes and saw such concern for him there. He pushed himself off the sand and brushed some of the stubborn granules clinging to his ass.

Katara watched him do this and couldn't help but notice that Zuko had a very fine ass. She blushed gently at her thoughts and looked down, letting her hair fall forward to hide the color staining her cheeks and neck.

She felt Zuko brush her thick chestnut locks back and tuck them behind her ears. She met his tawny eyes with her own cerulean ones when he whispered, "You don't have to be ashamed, Katara. This world is still a dangerous place with rebels and deserters still at the fringes of society. I could have been anyone and if your reflexes hadn't been as fast as they are, you could have been hurt or killed, or even worse." His voice had deepened slightly since they had last talked, and it ran over her like fire whiskey on ice that she had taken to drinking to relax. Smooth on her tongue with a burn as it went down.

Glad that he had misunderstood her blush, Katara nodded to him with a grateful smile, albeit forced, and replied, "A woman can never be too careful so soon after a war. What brings you out here, Fire Lord?" She looked up into his face, and noticed that he had grown as well in the month she had been on the island.

Zuko turned to look at the ocean, staring at it's vastness like she had done a few moments before he had announced himself. Katara noticed that he had a troubled look in his eyes.

"I went to visit Ozai in his cell not long after you came here and demanded that he tell me where my mother had been sent. It's high time for me to find her and bring her home. To her rightful place. He told me that she was banished to the Earth Kingdom, and that his spies followed her from there to the Northern Water Tribe. He said that after that he lost contact with the people he had sent to watch her. I assume that she is still in the North, and I was hoping that you would come with me and help me search for her." While he was speaking, Zuko turned to face her with a desperate look in his eyes.

Katara had never seen Zuko plead for anything in the time that she had known him. He was too proud for begging or pleading. But he was plainly begging for her help, and she felt something inside her grow to meet his need. There was a slight tightening in her chest, like her heart was growing larger at his look. He was standing there looking at her, and for a moment she wished that he was asking for something else.

What else she had no idea.

"Zuko, you know that I would help you with anything you ask of me. Yes, I'll help you search for your mother. I know how important mothers are tp their children." She reached and caress her own mother's necklace. The only thing she had left of Kya.

Zuko noticed her doing this and reached out his own hand to caress the stone at the base of her throat and touched her hand. There was a sad, deep emotion on his face, almost like he wished he could search for her mother and bring her back to Katara. "Thank you for everything Katara. I knew that you, of all people, would understand my need to bring her home. I just wish..." He trailed off and cleared his throat, "I just wish that I could return the favor."


End file.
